by London Casey
The bar started to spin.
I took a deep breath so I didn’t appear drunk.
I reached into my bag and pulled out a ten. I put it in front of Mitch.
“What’s that for?” he asked
“The drink,” I said. “I didn’t ask for it. And you can keep the extra dollar, since you seem to need it more.”
My bitch level was usually between a two and a three. Very rarely did I break the number five threshold. But for some reason, after hearing that guy ramble on like he had, it felt so relieving to pay him for the drink I didn’t want and he drank.
I walked away, reaching for my keys, knowing that if I even thought about driving home it was a terrible decision to make.
It made me think of Kyle.
He was a stupid ass who had gotten himself killed in a car accident.
Poor Kyle. His family liked me. He liked me. On the outside I was this perfect woman for him. I wasn’t pushing for commitment. I wasn’t hounding him about the future. We were just… together. But it was all a lie. A big, fat lie.
I made it to the door and felt someone grab my arm.
When I spun around, I saw Karen as she started to move. But it wasn’t Karen actually moving. It was my drunk eyes and drunk brain spinning.
“What are you doing?”
“I have to go,” I said. “I can’t be here, Karen. I’m sorry.”
“Shit,” she said. “I’m almost done here. I’ve got half an hour to go. Okay? Don’t bail on me, Lacey. Don’t do anything stupid. Sit down in a booth and I’ll get you something to eat. Try to absorb some of the alcohol.”
“No,” I said.
“No?”
“I don’t want food.”
“You can’t leave without me. So, what do you want?”
“I want another drink.”
Karen sat me down on the couch. She put a bottle of water in one hand and two pills in the other.
“Poison?” I asked.
“To get you a head start on tomorrow’s hangover,” she said. She sat on the coffee table across from me. “You don’t drink like this, Lacey. What’s going on? Is this because of Kyle? Losing your job? What is it?”
I shook my head.
“It’s because of River.”
Just saying his name was like a dagger to my chest.
I took the pills and washed them down with water. The thought of another drink was enough to feel sick. Lucky for me I wasn’t quite at that point yet. Close, but I had pulled myself away from the last drink, knowing what it would do to me.
“Okay,” Lacey said. “I’ll help you get to the guest bedroom. Come on.”
Karen helped me to my feet. I stumbled my way through her apartment to the spare bedroom. She sat me on the bed and then went to get me a towel and a bucket. Just in case.
But I wouldn’t need it.
“Come on,” she said. “Take a deep breath and shut your eyes. You just need to sleep…”
“He was there,” I said. “He was there and I left him there.”
“Who? What are you talking about?”
I laughed. “He wanted to propose to me. Ten years… and he wanted to propose…”
“Lacey, you’re not making any sense.”
I kept laughing. And then like the flip of a switch I started to cry. My emotions were a mess.
“Oh, shit,” Karen said. She sat on the bed next to me and ran her hand through my hair. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on here.”
I gave her the drunk rundown of how River and I agreed to meet up at that rock. How time flew right the hell by and that I always avoided that day with a vacation because I never knew if he’d actually show up or not.
“But he showed up,” I said. “I took the drive and he was there.”
“Oh,” Karen said. “How did it go?”
“I got my car stuck in a ditch. He pulled me out. We kissed a few times. Then he took a shower. I found an engagement ring in his pocket. Then I left.”
Karen had both eyes open wide.
Yeah, it sounded that crazy and it all was true.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Why did you leave?”
“I freaked out,” I said. “I couldn’t stop getting angry. Over the entire thing. Why we let all those years get between us. He wanted me to become a doctor, find a man to marry, have kids. He wanted some kind of perfect life but I didn’t get it.”
“What did you want for him?” Karen asked.
“To come get me,” I said, my voice cracking. “My parents tore me away from him. And no matter what I did, I thought of him. I couldn’t find real love. I couldn’t live the way I should have. Maybe that’s my fault for hanging onto him so much. I should have let him go. But then I met Kyle and he was the calm in the storm.”
“You loved him, right?”
I looked at Karen. My eyes filled with fresh tears.
“Oh, shit, Lacey,” she whispered. She pulled me to her chest as I wept. “Shit. That’s why it’s hitting you so hard. You feel guilty about Kyle.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “So guilty. But he’s gone. And River isn’t. I left him, though. And I can’t figure out why. I think it’s the truth.”
“What truth?” Karen asked.
“Everything we went through together. You can’t just erase ten years. I’m so angry that he didn’t come after me… but I didn’t go after him, either. I was taken from him. My parents made it clear that if I stayed with him they were going to cut me off.”
“I know, I know,” Karen said. “Look at me, Lacey.”
I looked up at her. “What?”
“You either need to let it all go or figure it all out. There’s no in-between. We both know we can’t take back those years. You were somewhere else and shit didn’t work out. I went through my own version of hell, too. If I think about it, yeah, it makes me angry. But if this guy showed up, that counts as something. The whole engagement ring thing? I don’t know what that could mean.”
“Can I admit something crazy while I’m drunk?”
“Of course.”
“Part of the reason I took off,” I began.
“Okay. What is it?”
“The ring.”
“The engagement ring?”
“Yeah. Not only was it the one I dreamed about and told him about a long time ago… I probably would have said yes to him right there on the spot. That’s how much he means.”
“Wow,” Karen said.
“Wow is right. And I wasted it. I ran away. He probably hates me.”
“Why don’t you call him?”
“I don’t have his number. I only know he works at St. Skin, the tattoo shop. He became a tattoo artist, something that doesn’t shock me. He used to draw things…” I smiled. “And he would get picked on for it…”
“Okay, Lacey,” Karen said. “You need to put your head on the pillow. You need to sleep.”
“I need him,” I whispered. “I need to see him. Talk to him. I need to fix everything. Ten years of everything. I need him to know I never loved anyone but him. I need to know if he loves me still.”
Karen gently eased me down to the pillow. She pulled the covers up to my chest. Then she kissed my forehead.
“Rest, Lacey,” she whispered. “Let me see what I can do.”
My lips kept moving, but there was no sound. Just silent whispers about River. I was so lost in myself and my thoughts, I didn’t think about what Karen had just said to me.
Let me see what I can do.
River
PRESENT DAY
My phone kept vibrating over and over and over and over. I finally opened my eyes and grabbed for the nightstand. It was a text message from Axel. He was at my door.
Wait, what?
I sat up and threw the covers off me. I looked to my left and did a double-take, forgetting that I had invited Ana over for dinner. In reality, that meant ordering takeout, sipping some whiskey, and enjoying each other’s company for hours. There wasn’t an inch
on her body I hadn’t kissed, and there wasn’t a second of it all that I didn’t regret.
Because it should have been someone else.
It should have been Lacey.
I snuck out of my own bedroom and through the apartment.
I heard someone knocking on the door.
“I’m coming,” I yelled.
I flinched, not wanting to wake up Ana.
I had to somehow get her out of the apartment without any weird feelings.
I opened the door, and Axel stood there, waving his cell phone at me. “Two seconds away from giving your shit up.”
“What are you doing here, man? It’s one in the morning.”
“I’m a vampire,” Axel said, and he opened his mouth wide.
“You’re drunk.”
“I don’t drink and drive, asshole. I wish I was drunk. But some chick decided to blow up my phone. Looking for you.”
“What?”
“The bar over outside Bansler’s,” Axel said. “I like to skip around here and there, you know? Keep things real. I’m like you, River. I have my days and moments when things weigh on me.”
“You’re here because some woman is looking for me?”
“Does the name Karen mean anything to you?”
“Karen? No. I don’t know a Karen.”
“She’s pretty serious about talking to you, man.”
“Why didn’t you just give her my number?”
“I didn’t want to give it out like that,” Axel said. “Wasn’t sure if it was some crazy ex or something.”
“How’d she get your number?”
“Fucking web site shit,” Axel said. “Just wait until Tate corners you and makes you set up a social media life.”
“Fuck that noise,” I said. “This Karen, did she say what she wanted?”
“She just needed to talk to you.”
“And you seriously came all the way to my place for that?” I asked. “You text me how many times? You couldn’t just send a message and leave it at that?”
Axel grinned. “Okay, you got me there, man. You’ve been going through some dark shit lately. I didn’t want to add to that pile without being here with you. Just in case.”
“In case what?” I asked. “Get to the point, Axel. It’s fucking late.”
“Karen tracked me down to look for you,” he said to me. “It’s about Lacey.”
“What?”
I felt like I had just been injected with the strongest coffee in the world.
“Yeah. Lacey. I guess they’re friends. Lacey is at her place. She’s looking for you.”
“Lacey is looking for me?” I asked. “That doesn’t make…”
“That’s what I was told. Lacey’s the one that got away, huh?”
“You could say that.”
“She’s not that far from here, either. So, you tell me what the next move is.”
I stood there in silence for a few seconds. When you were a kid, you were taught things by your parents or by finding shit out the hard way. For me, my parents were trapped in a debt and a marriage that came without love. So I learned a lot of hard lessons on my own. For example, if you touch a hot stove and get burned, chances are you’re not going to touch the stove again next time it’s hot.
Right?
That was Lacey.
I touched and got burned.
I had a pretty woman in my bed. We could wake up, talk, flirt, fuck, and see what would happen from there.
But this was Lacey…the one. The only one.
I looked at Axel. “Give me the number.”
“You sure about this?” he asked.
“What would you do if your ex-wife tried to track you down?”
“I’d wonder how much fucking money she wanted,” Axel said, laughing. He rubbed his chin. “For real though? I’d probably let her find me so I could fuck her one more time for good measure.”
“No love there at all?”
“Why does my situation matter?” Axel asked. “You want the number, I’ll text it to you. Make sure you know what you’re doing. Can’t have you going dark on us, man.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said. “Thanks for checking on me.”
“Try to keep yourself out of trouble,” Axel said. “Women have a way of just getting to that last little sliver of your heart and fucking with it.”
“Yeah, I know,” I grumbled.
Axel left, and by the time I got to the bedroom, my phone was lit up with the phone number that belonged to someone named Karen.
A quick text exchange gave me all I needed to know.
Lacey had gotten drunk and started to cry, spilling her guts about me. She really needed to see me again. I would have gotten in my truck right then and gone to her, but she was passed out cold.
So I sat on the edge of the bed and kept looking back at Ana.
It was like the past was coming back to haunt me. My finding comfort in women. Wondering what Lacey was doing. And as far as her anger for me not finding her, there was something she didn’t know.
I had found her.
Once.
Through a friend of a friend, I was able to check on her.
And she was with some guy, and they were talking about getting married.
I put my face into my hands.
How many times could I break my own heart for the sake of the past?
I was good for at least one more time, because I was going to see Lacey in the morning.
I managed to catch a little sleep.
I got up long before Ana did, which was part of my plan.
It was an asshole move to make, but I wrote a quick note telling her I had to take care of some business. That was just how I dealt with women. Nothing could ever compare to Lacey, and nobody would ever stop me from getting a chance to see her and be with her.
I left the note on the bed and nodded at Ana’s sleeping body.
Then I was out the door and gone.
I hit a drive-thru for a breakfast sandwich and coffee. Being up that early in the morning was not my kind of thing. But I told Karen I would be there by eight.
I knocked on the door with two minutes to spare.
When the door opened, there was a pretty blonde standing there, eyeing me. She was skinny, wearing a lot of jewelry and a lot of makeup. The kind that someone wore to cover up scars on the inside. Her eyes told a story of survival and pain.
“You’re the famous River,” she said.
“You’re the famous Karen,” I threw back. “You must be a really good friend to Lacey for this. Bothering me in the middle of the night.”
“She regrets whatever happened between you two,” Karen said. “Come on in. Want some coffee?”
“Sure,” I said.
I sat at a round table that had four chairs.
Karen poured coffee into two mugs that didn’t match.
I declined the cream and sugar she offered before she sat down across from me. She blew into her coffee as she stared at me, trying to figure me out.
“We go way back,” I said. “You know that, right?”
“Oh, I know that. You’re her one and only, River. I hope you know that.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Things didn’t turn out the way I hoped…”
“You had an engagement ring?”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “Wow. You just get right into it.”
“I’ve never seen her like I did last night. She’s never opened to me like that. I’ve known Lacey for a good five years. Maybe a little less. She and I became friends as two lost people. I was going through a divorce, and she was fleeing everything she knew.”
“Damn,” I said. “I had no idea. I wish I’d known. We made this stupid agreement…”
“I heard about that too,” Karen said.
“Anything she didn’t confess while drunk?”
“Not much,” Karen said. “But I know she can’t go any longer without seeing you. Whatever happened between then and when you met up again…
you two need to talk it out. She’s acting brokenhearted.”
“I went to take a shower, and when I got out, she was gone,” I said.
“I’ve known Lacey long enough to know that she has a deep fear of being let down,” Karen said. “I blame her parents for that. And maybe you, River.”
That one stung a little, but it was well-deserved by me.
“I understand,” I said. “She’s terrified. I get that. Maybe I’m terrified too.”
Karen stood up from the table. “I don’t plan on playing matchmaker or anything like that. I’m not going to be in the middle of whatever this is. I’m just helping a friend right now because she needs it. She has no idea you’re here.”
“Nothing like a surprise after a night of drinking.”
“Better than waking up next to a stranger,” Karen said.
I thought about Ana in my bed. She was probably waking up about now. She’d read my note. Then what? Would she flip her shit and break something? Or would she just pack up and leave?
The regret washed through me like a fast-moving sickness.
I looked down into my coffee and hated myself.
Whatever happened, good or bad, I needed to get to the bottom of everything with Lacey. No matter how much it hurt me.
I was still staring down at my coffee when Karen spoke words that forever changed my life.
“Well, there she is…good morning, sunshine.”
Lacey
PRESENT DAY
I opened my eyes and felt like there was an anvil on my head. I looked around and felt relieved that I was in Karen’s apartment. The night started to get fuzzy after that guy bought me a drink. What was his name? Mike? Mitch?
It didn’t matter.
I sat up in the bed and groaned. To my right, there was a tall glass of water, a tall glass of orange juice, and two pills for the headache. I vaguely remembered Karen giving me medicine before I fell asleep.
Before I’d opened the waterworks and started to talk about River.
“Oh, damn,” I whispered.
I rubbed my forehead.
River.
This morning’s headache was brought to you by River.
“Thanks,” I said as I threw the pills into my mouth.
